Do you have difficulties keeping track of all that crap going on in the pestholes of the world? I’m not talking about France here. I’m talking about places where we’ve either invaded them and given them their freedom [Actually I suppose France meets that description, along with everyone else involved in WWII except Russia] eh. Well, hell.

Let me start over. I don’t understand what the hell is going on in the Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Russia, or even the Pacific Ocean downstream from Fukushima Northern Hemisphere Distributor of Deadly Radiation. I don’t understand why they keep beating the trumpet claiming Ebola’s going to kill us all. I don’t understand why people keep claiming they don’t understand that Israel’s gradually absorbing their neighboring country before the eyes of the world and killing off the residents there indiscriminately.

It’s consoling to me to figure the guy in the White House doesn’t understand any of that either.

Nothing new there. Back when Ronald Reagan was dealing with Iran during the Jimmy Carter presidency, telling them he’d trade them weaponry if they’d hold onto the hostages until after the election, Reagan didn’t understand it all, either. I doubt he ever understood he’d been whipsawed by a bunch of smartypantses, one in particular, wearing a Marine Lt. Colonel insignia and a pretty face. I think Iran/Contra took him by surprise.

Yeah, Colonel John Wayne North helped weave that web. Along with a number of familiar faces later on during the Bush Senior presidency, engineering Desert Storm. Maybe Bush Senior understood it all.

But nobody has since then, among the distant observers, nor among the people who think they’re making it all happen.

Be consoled, readers. Nobody even remembers the assassination of President Diem, the Gulf of Tonkin and how that blew up into the biggest US military debacle in US history. Nobody even remembered it a couple of years into the war.

For that matter, nobody remembers the invasion of Panama, the Iran Hostages and the cute piece of horse trading Reagan lackeys used to keep those hostages in prison until after the election in exchange for weaponry. Nobody even remembers the Bay of Pigs. Or the devil-take-the-hindmost last minute graveyards voting in South Texas that won the election for John Kennedy.

So if you don’t understand what the hell we’re doing talking about military involvement in the vicinity of Russia and the Ukraine, don’t worry. A year from now you won’t remember it anyway. Same with Syria, Iran, everywhere else it’s more comfortable for the government if you forget.

You’ll remember North Korea. Be consoled. And you’ll remember that someone in Palestine shot the finger at an Israeli and caused them to have to carpet bomb some town or city full of unarmed civilians to get at suspected terrorists.

Be consoled though. The guy in the White House won’t remember it, either.

Hi readers. I’d never thought about it until I watched Baran on Netflix. How similar Iranians are to Americans. In this Turkish movie while building a site in Tehran, Turkish worker Lateef is drawn to young Afghan worker Rahmat, who is dangerously in disguise. A female illegal alien, refugee from Afghanistan.

And those Iranians don’t put up with anyone giving jobs to those wetback Afghans any more than Arizonians who aren’t needing yard work done don’t condone anyone hiring Mexican illegal aliens.

What’s surprising is the number of ways Mexicans and Afghans are similar outside the mere shared illegal alien status. Both are bad about shooting things up in their own countries, they’re both rather dark skinned, and they both speak languages the average US citizen can’t understand. Then there’s the matter of cutlery.

But the amazing corollary is the many ways other than their views about illegal aliens Americans are similar to Iranians. Each has a ‘special’ relationship with Israel and the Israelis, for instance. Each is preoccupied with nuclear weapons. Each sits atop one hell of a lot of oil. And each tends to go overboard over religion and religious matters sufficiently to get religion and government confused.

You never-forgetters have something to remember and celebrate not forgetting it.

This time a century ago the sneaky lowdown stinking Muslim Ottoman Empire was withdrawing from the Balkans. Territory ripe for the taking by devil-take-the-hindmost.

Naturally the web of inbred monarch cousins ruling Europe, Russia and Britain wanted a piece of what those Muslims were leaving behind. And by 1913 they’d all decided which cousins were friends this time around, and which were enemies.

Those cousins had plenty of cannon fodder and they were all waiting for a spark to set them off so’s they’d have an excuse for their patriotic homeland worship-ridden peasantry to cut one another down with artillery, machine guns and bayonettes.

A few months down the road they got their excuse when their Austrian cousin got offed by a Serbian as he drove by in a motorcade on the way to laying down the law the Austrians were about to provide for the Serbians to march to.

Thoroughly pissed off the cousins running France, the Austrian Empire, the Russian Empire, the German Empire, the British Empire, and scattered cousins elsewhere. Eventually even the cousins running the United States.

So naturally they sent their peasants out to slaughter one another for the homeland, protecting their motherlands from all the damned foreigners taking the ownership of the land, food, wealth and power from the cousins who were providing them their weaponry and telling them to “CHARGE! Fight to the death!”

Gave us one hell of a 20th Century. After that the Russian peasants on the front lines starving to death fighting Germans and Austrians decided, “Screw this shit!”. Went home and chopped their ruling cousins to death instead of going after the intended target.

Damned British cousins were having distractions in Ireland where they were starving everyone to death, and Wales with the coal miners wanting to get paid and have safety standards in their mines where so many were getting killed in mine accidents. Had to call in the cousins from the US to bail them out.

As if that weren’t enough, the cheeky bastard Turks whipped the socks off the British Navy and all the Australian and Indian peasants the British cousins sent to invade Turkey!

French cousins had some difficulties because the damned German cousins kept telling their peasants in the trenches to shoot the French peasants, and the French cousins having to shoot their own peasants when they tried to get the hell out of Dodge.

And all because of the damned Turks. Those damned sneaky-assed Ottoman Muslim Turks. They caused it all. The end of the Russian cousins, the Austrian cousins having to hide a longish time, the British cousins having to let go their stranglehold on Ireland and pay their damned miners in Wales, give them air down in the holes and ways to fight fires.

Damned Muslim bastards caused the WWII and Cold War. Civilization hasn’t recovered yet. 30-40 million people killed in that one war and all because of those lowdown sneaking no-go0d-for-nothing Moslems.

Not to mention all the damage it did all over the world by opening up the Pandora’s Box of unions springing up all over the place keeping factory and industry owners from making an honest living by having to pay wages, have safety enough on jobs to keep a lot of injured workers from drawing attention to themselves.

And now they’re trying to do it again. Forcing the cousins in the United States into sending the peasants out with the new generation of weaponry.

Last night Rich called and during the conversation he mentioned the Turks are trying to resolve differences of opinion he doesn’t know what are. Evidently their methods of persuading one another have drawn some attention.

I swan. Those Turks are always full of surprises. One day they’re running around everyone wearing a fez, next day wearing a fez is a criminal offense. They sit off there during WWI looking as though they’re just some little country getting in the way of progress, end up whipping the socks off the entire British Empire.

Everything went so bad the history writers for WWI barely allowed Turkey into the history books because of them not getting the socks whipped off them the way they were supposed to.

So, what then? City goes along being Constantanople 15 centuries or so, centerpoint for crusaders, Byzantine Empire, home of Janisaries [some of the more dedicated empire builders in human history] and the Cold War comes along, suddenly they’re Istanbul and more-or-less European.

Best just leave the whole matter alone. As the Four Lads observed in 1953, it’s nobody’s business but the Turks.

Welcome

I’m sharing it with you because there’s almost no likelihood you’ll believe it. This lunatic asylum I call my life has so many unexpected twists and turns I won’t even try to guess where it’s going. I’d suggest you try to find some laughs here. You won’t find wisdom. Good luck.